


through the years we all will be together

by besidemethewholedamntime



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Christmas Decorating, Comfort, F/M, Family, Fluff, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28226796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/besidemethewholedamntime/pseuds/besidemethewholedamntime
Summary: “You don’t what?” She raises her eyebrow. “Don’t act as though you and Jemma aren’t making this extra special for her as well. I know for a fact that Jemma’s out now trying to buy Alya’s entire Christmas list to make sure she gets everything.”That she is, but since neither she nor Fitz had told his mum about it he’s not entirely sure how she’s aware. Then again, he’s unsurprised. She knows everything. And she’s right. They are trying to make sure Alya has the most perfect Christmas to make up for everything they haven’t been able to give her before. Yes, they might be going a bit overboard but that’s them – they’ve never been one to do things by halves. He’s not expecting his mum to do the same.Now, he really thinks he should have known better.Fitz's mum tries to make Alya's first Christmas on Earth special. A post-canon Christmas fic.
Relationships: Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons
Comments: 18
Kudos: 61





	through the years we all will be together

**Author's Note:**

> hello again! I've had this written for a while but I've not been able to proofread it until tonight and I wanted to make sure I got it up before Christmas because it is a Christmassy fic after all!
> 
> It's based off a tweet from the absolutely lovely bean that is Sarah ( phlebotinxm on ao3 - a highly amazing author who I recommend wholeheartedly!) about how Fitz's mum lets Alya decorate her Christmas tree. It all just kind of snowballed from there (as things with me tend to do). Thank you so much, Sarah, for your idea that you've allowed me to write!
> 
> Title from 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' 
> 
> I hope you enjoy <3

“I don’t really think you need to bring all this stuff out, Mum.”

“Och, just shut it, you. Since when did you become the Grinch?”

“Mum,” Fitz sighs, as he takes in the several boxes of Christmas decorations his mother has somehow managed to bring down from the loft in a record amount of time. “I’m not the Grinch. I just think you’ve went maybe a smidge overboard this year.”

“I have done nothing of the sort,” she replies loftily. “I’ve done exactly as I do every year, you just haven’t been around to see it.”

“Right, can we just-” Fitz pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “Can we just stop going on about that, please? I said I was sorry.”

“I know you did, sweetheart, but I’m still going to go on about it.” She hands him a ball of what he presumes are Christmas tree lights. “Make yourself useful and untangle these.”

“You don’t _have_ to go on about it though,” he sighs, trying to figure out where to start with lights that have a good chance of being older than him. “You could try letting it go.”

She spins around, eyebrow raised. “Aw, sweetheart, it’s like you’ve forgotten everything since you’ve been gone. Since when does that sound like something I would do?”

He has to laugh. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

She sniffs. “Glad to hear it. Now,” she puts her hands on her hips and says in mock confusion, “where is that _adorable_ granddaughter of mine. I could have sworn she was here a second ago?”

There’s a giggle from one of the boxes of decorations and Fitz has to bite back his own laugh. Alya’s little blonde head peeps through the different coloured tinsels that the box holds, betraying her position entirely if her little laugh didn’t. He hadn’t even seen that she’s climbed inside, and wonders how, in all of her back and forth, that his mum did.

“I don’t know,” Fitz says, his own voice exaggerated, enjoying the bigger giggle it elicits from his daughter. “She was around here somewhere.”

“That she was,” his mum says, smiling. “Oh well then, I guess that means no shortbread for her, which is such a shame because it’s still warm as well and I am s _ure_ it’s somebody’s favourite when it’s like that. But if she’s not here then…”

“I’m here, Granny! I’m here!” Alya busts out from her tinsel hideaway like a tightly coiled spring that’s been set free. Comically draped in the tinsel she was hiding under, she waves her arms at Fitz’s mum. “I want shortbread!”

“Oh _there_ you are,” she says, going over to lift Alya out by her armpits. “You gave me a wee fright, so you did.”

Alya frowns. “Only a wee one?”

His mum laughs in disbelief. “What, you wanted to give me a big one?” Shaking her head, she says, “You are a cheeky rascal, aren’t you?” Fixing a bit of tinsel that Alya would have otherwise tripped over as soon as he tried to run, his mum points through to the kitchen. “If you go on through there, you’ll find your plate with some on it, and your cup’s got juice in it, too.”

Alya runs off, gleefully anticipating a sugar high, while Fitz rubs his head at the thought. “You need to stop feeding her rubbish every time we come. She starts to expect it now.”

His mum shoots him a warning look. “You need to stop talking like you didn’t live purely off sugar when you were wee. Becoming a parent has made you a hypocrite.”

“It has not,” he blusters, still trying to unwind the lights. How they even got into this tangle in the first place is beyond him. “Just don’t want Alya bouncing off the walls when we get home. She’s hyper enough.”

“Och don’t be such a grump and let her enjoy it, will you? It’s Christmas, for God’s sake.”

“I suppose,” he sighs, looking through to the kitchen where his daughter is licking sugar crystals off a shortbread round. “It is the first one she’s had, guess a bit of sugar won’t kill her. Or me.”

He’s talking mainly to himself, but it’s only when there’s a thump of a box hitting the floor that he realises someone else was listening. Bracing himself for exactly what he’ll find when he turns around, he does just that and finds himself unsurprised.

His mum stands, aghast, with her hand clutched to her chest. If he didn’t know any better he’d say she was having chest pains, but he knows she’s just being dramatic. Her eyes narrow. “What do you mean it’s her first Christmas?”

“I uh…” he rubs at the back of his neck. She hasn’t asked about what they’d done whilst away, and he’s been grateful for it. It would be too hard to explain to her, too hard to lie to her about it. But he knows she won’t let this one go. “Well…”

It had been a conscious decision between him and Jemma not to celebrate Christmas onboard the Zephyr. Although they had a clock that let them know what time and date it would be if they were on Earth, that was also all they had. They didn’t want to explain to Alya all of the things that she would have had normally, that they couldn’t give her at all for who knew how long. They didn’t want her to feel as though she were missing out more than she already was.

And maybe it was for themselves as well. To celebrate Christmas and be reminded of the way things used to be, of the way things might never be again, would have almost been too much to bear.

“We uh,” he fumbles for the words. “We just couldn’t celebrate it. Didn’t have much to celebrate it with, didn’t want her to feel like she was missing out.”

His mum exhales jaggedly. “Leopold Fitz…”

His full name gives him heart palpitations. She has used it only once in his living memory, and that was when he took apart the new toaster she had just bought in order to see how it worked and promptly electrocuted himself in the process. He waits now, breath held, to see what awaits him in the next part of her sentence.

“How _dare_ you not tell me that this was the wee one’s first Christmas?” She looks around the place, the mess of boxes in her living room. “I would have had it all out for her when she came so she could just decorate the place. I would have made it special.” She glares at him. “I love you, son, but I swear to God I could throttle you sometimes.”

“Oh, whoah, wait a minute.” Fitz holds his hands up in defence. “Why are you throttling me? There’s no need to throttle anyone. She’s having a great time, have you not seen her?”

“That’s not the point,” his mum hisses. “I would have made a day of it for her. Not have her sorting through the boxes.” She takes a deep breath. “I cannot believe you.”

“Mum, I think you’re making a bigger deal of it than there has to be.” His hands are still up, trying to ward off the daggers she continues to send his way. “Everything’s special to her at the minute. She’s loving it. She wouldn’t have known any better.”

It pains him to have to say it, but it’s true. Even the simple Christmas decorations that the council have put up in the streets at home have Alya absolutely spellbound. Most people simply walk on by, barely even glancing up at the decorations that they see every year, whereas Alya walks with her neck permanently craned to see the lights strung between lampposts as if they are the most magical things she has seen in all the world.

“That’s not the point,” his mum stresses again, pinching the bridge of her nose in the spitting image of her son. After a few second her eyes fly open again and she snaps her fingers. “Right, here, help me get the tree up quick and that way she can decorate it when she comes back from her snack.”

“Mum-”

“Shht, let me think. She can decorate the tree and have free run of it while we unpack the rest of the boxes, and then she can help put the rest of the ornaments out.”

“I don’t-”

“You don’t what?” She raises her eyebrow. “Don’t act as though you and Jemma aren’t making this extra special for her as well. I know for a fact that Jemma’s out now trying to buy Alya’s entire Christmas list to make sure she gets everything.”

That she is, but since neither she nor Fitz had told his mum about it he’s not entirely sure how she’s aware. Then again, he’s unsurprised. She knows everything. And she’s right. They are trying to make sure Alya has the most perfect Christmas to make up for everything they haven’t been able to give her before. Yes, they might be going a bit overboard but that’s them – they’ve never been one to do things by halves. He’s not expecting his mum to do the same.

Now, he really thinks he should have known better.

“Yeah, she is,” he says, with a worried glance in his daughter’s direction to ensure she hasn’t heard. “But that’s not the point. We don’t want you to worry about it, or put yourself out.”

“Now listen here,” she says, lowering her voice, but there’s no missing the sternness in it. “I have missed out on four Christmases with my granddaughter.” He’s about to protest but she holds up a hand and he thinks better of it. “Four. Four years of her life that I will never be able to get back. So excuse me if I want to do something nice for her, the same what way you and Jemma are. I don’t think that’s ridiculous, do you?”

Suddenly the carpet at his feet is fascinating. “Suppose not.”

She makes a noise in the back of her throat. “I think you forget that it’s been a long time since I’ve gotten to spend Christmas with my family.”

“Aw, Mum,” he says, looking up with tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She swipes under her eyes quickly, and he pretends he hasn’t seen. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to make you feel bad, sweetheart, or make you feel like you have to keep making it up to me. This isn’t about me. It’s about her. I just want to give her a good Christmas. One of the official duties of a granny, is it not?”

He laughs, marvelled at her ability to keep on going, even though he knows he shouldn’t be surprised at it anymore. Maggie Fitz isn’t one to feel sorry for herself, she never has been. She picks herself, and anybody else who needs it, up and carries on. No matter what. “Is it now?”

“I remember when your granny used to let you play with the polystyrene packing and chuck it all about the house.” She smiles at the memory. “Got it all over my living room and my good carpet as well. And whenever I questioned her about it she’d just smile and say that it was one of her jobs to let you have fun and not care about the mess afterwards.”

“Oh God, I remember that.” He’d been four years old, maybe five, and his dad had been away on some trip down south that meant he and his mum could blast Christmas music as loud as they wanted and go as mad as they liked on the fake snow on the windows without worrying about disturbing him. His granny had come down from Aberdeen and stayed with them for those few days and had let him run amok with the packing, spraying it about the house as though it were confetti. He remembers his mum’s cry of exasperation when she came in, and the whispered conversation with his grandmother in the hallway, but he also remembers that, by the end of it, the three of them were making snow angels in the polystyrene, laughing as though it were going out of fashion.

His mum makes it sound like a trivial memory now, and perhaps it is, but it was also a happy memory that sustained him throughout most of his early childhood, reminding him that, though the days may have been dark, there were still plenty of light ones to come.

“It was a good day,” she says quietly now. “I just want to be able to do that for her.”

“Okay,” he nods, understanding more now than he ever has before. “Alright. Tell me where you want me to put the tree. I’ll make a start on the bottom if you start unfurling the top.”

“Right you are, son,” she says, nodding, but there’s a hint of a smile on her face and he finds he has one too as he bends down to start assembling the base of the tree.

They work quickly and, with a surprisingly minimal amount of swearing, eventually a Christmas tree is unfurled and ready to be attacked by a vivacious four-year-old who has never done anything like this in her life. All of the baubles are laid out ready for her to hang on the branches to her heart’s content, the lights finally unwound, ready to be strung up as soon as Alya’s done. It’s a rather impressive effort, even if he does say so himself, and made even more so by the fact they’ve been able to do it in the time it’s taken Alya to eat her shortbread and drink her juice.

Eventually she does come through, however, and she just tilts her head to the side in that way that means she doesn’t quite understand.

“What’s this, Daddy?” She says, tucking herself in at his side, looking up at the tree that just now seems to tower over her.

“It’s a Christmas tree, monkey. You remember seeing them about?” He kneels down next to her. “They’ve got all the decorations on them? Well, Granny has very kindly decided to let you put the decorations on this one.”

Alya looks from him to the tree to the neat piles of baubles and then back at him, brow furrowed still in confusion. “I put them,” she points to the baubles, “on _there_?”

“Yup, you’ve got it in one,” he tells her.

“But the tree’s too big, Daddy. I won’t reach all the way up there.”

“We’ll sort that out, monkey. Just do what you can reach just now.”

Alya looks from him to his mother, who nods encouragingly, and then smiles brightly. “Okay!” She says, before darting to the bauble pile, tongue sticking out in concentration as she carefully selects what one to hang first.

Fitz smiles as he watches her, capturing this moment like a picture, one to keep next to all the others he has of her in his mind. When he does look away he finds his mum watching him, a strange look on her face.

“What?” He asks. “What’s that look for?”

She just shakes her head. “Nothing, sweetheart. Nothing at all.”

Never one to keep secrets or mince her words, the response is strange, but he knows from experience that it won’t change. If it’s something she’s decided not to say then that’s that. The matter is over and done with.

He smiles at her and then nods his head towards the rest of the boxes. “Do you want me to start unpacking these?”

“Aye,” she nods. “You start with them and I’ll go make us tea. You want one?”

“Yeah, please. Thanks, Mum.”

She doesn’t even make it to the kitchen because the front door opens and Jemma’s voice is shouting, “It’s only me!” from the front hall.

“Mumma!” Alya darts into the hallway before Fitz can even register that she’s moved, and when he steps into it he finds her hugging Jemma’s legs as though it’s been more than two hours since she saw her last.

“Jemma!” His mum cries. “Will you be wanting a tea as well?”

“I would love one, Maggie, thank you,” Jemma smiles at her gratefully, before hugging Alya, still clinging to her knees like a monkey.

“Are you alright, sweet girl?”

Alya’s voice is muffled by Jemma’s jeans. “I missed you.”

“Oh, I missed you, too.” Jemma squeezes her tightly before releasing. “What have you been up to?”

Alya peels her face away, looking up at her mother. “I’m decorating a tree.”

“Are you now? Well isn’t that exciting.” Jemma brushes Alya’s hair away from her face. “Why don’t you go back at it and let me catch up with Daddy? I’ll be through in a second.”

Alya giggles and races away and Jemma looks up at Fitz, exhausted but eyes bright.

“Hello, you,” Fitz smiles, kissing her gently before brushing her own hair away from her face. “How did it go?”

“It was utter madness. Next time you can be the one to buy her presents.” She gives him a look but then smiles. “I got us a tree. Finding one that matched your exact specifications was _not_ easy, I might add.”

“But you got it?” He adds hopefully.

“I did,” she nods. “Our 10ft Christmas tree shall be delivered the day after tomorrow.”

He grins. “Never doubted you for a second.”

“Mm, of course, you didn’t.” She unwinds her scarf and steps out of her boots. “I see you’ve all been busy.”

“Oh yeah. It’s a right Christmas festival in here. Mum’s got a bee in her bonnet about giving Alya a good Christmas experience.”

“Oi, I heard that.” His mum pops her head around the kitchen door. “Do you want sugar, Jemma?”

“Yes please,” Jemma smiles, and his mum’s head retreats. Smiling at Fitz she raises her eyebrow. “You should know better.”

“I should, shouldn’t I?” Fitz scratches the back of his neck. “You want to come and see what we’ve done?”

“I would love to.” Then she lowers her voice and inclines her head in the direction of the kitchen. “Have you asked her yet?”

“No, not yet. I was waiting for you.”

“I see,” she says. “Well come on then. Show me the winter wonderland you’ve created.”

He laughs and her resulting smile makes fireworks go off in his chest. He loves that smile. For so many years it feels as though he never got to see it, that when she did smile it was dimmed behind a veil of sadness that made his heart ache. In the years they have spent alone, in the time since they have moved here, that veil has been removed, and her smile now is brilliant and dazzling, just as she has always been to him.

Jemma coos appropriately over the tree that Alya’s decorating, _oohing_ and _ahhing_ over the baubles that Alya holds up to show her, though Fitz can tell that the enthusiasm in her voice isn’t feigned, and that she’s just as delighted as their daughter over the light reflecting in the glass. He watches them for a minute, as he so often does these days, without saying a thing, simply just enjoying having them both this close to him.

His mum comes back into the room with three cups held only in her hands and he quickly moves to take two from her, but she barely notices. Inclining her head towards mother and daughter, she says, “Precious, isn’t she?”

“Yeah,” Fitz says, smiling at the two halves of his heart. “They are.”

Jemma turns around and smiles and he feels his heart stop before resuming again. He holds out the cup to her, which she comes over and accepts gratefully.

“She’s doing a wonderful job considering this is her first attempt. Apparently, she’s designed a system to ensure the colours are evenly spaced out.”

Fitz looks behind Jemma to Alya, whose little tongue is sticking out in concentration as she carefully hands another ornament onto the tree. “Definitely your daughter then,” he quips, enjoying Jemma’s answering eyeroll. “What? We both know you’ve got a system for decorating our tree already, that you’ve had one for weeks.”

“It’s good to have a system,” his mum interrupts. “Otherwise the tree would look like a right dog’s dinner, and you can’t be having that. Especially not in that big fancy house of yours.”

“It’s not a big fancy house, Mum,” he sighs. “It’s just old.”

“And big and fancy,” she finishes. “I didn’t say there was anything wrong with that, mind you. It’s good you’ve got so much room for the wee one to run around in.” She winks. “And any other wee ones you might get round to having.”

“ _Mum,_ ” Fitz hisses, the tips of his ears going pink. Beside him, Jemma just laughs as though she is entirely comfortable with the conversation. “ _Enough._ ”

“Och, don’t start getting all uptight with me, sweetheart. I think I’m quite aware how babies are made by now, and I would hope you are as well.” She raises an eyebrow. “Or is this where you tell me that Alya was brought by a stork?”

He very nearly chokes on his tea, not just his ears going pink now but his whole body burning a fiery red. Jemma places a comforting hand on his arm but he still catches the amused glint in her eye, and he knows that, even with his obvious mortification, she is finding this absolutely hilarious.

His mum looks at him, also very amused, but then takes a sip of her tea and asks Jemma something about the roads on the way here. And for a while they talk about mundane things like this, and Fitz is so very caught off guard by it. It’s been so long since he’s had to have any sort of mundane conversation. They talk of things like the state of the roads and council tax and whether or not the fireworks at New Year will be any good. There’s nothing about Inhumans or Hydra or Chronicoms, nothing about SHIELD at all. There’s nothing about science or conspiracies, nothing about secret government agencies of any kind, that he feels almost out of his depth. There’s nothing of anything he is familiar with at all, only his mum, and her usual ramblings about the abysmal state of ScotRail.

So lost in his own head he is that he almost misses Jemma’s not-so-subtle nudging at his side, and the tilting of her head in his other’s direction.

“Jemma, is your neck alright, sweetheart?” His mum asks, and Fitz has to swallow a laugh.

Jemma, in response, shoots him a look of irritation and says, “Yes, Maggie. I’m sorry, I was just trying to get Fitz to ask you something.”

“Is that what you were trying to do?” He asks, “’Cause it looked like you were having a stroke.”

“You’re insufferable,” she grumbles, before smiling at his mother. “Do you have any plans for Christmas Day yet, Maggie?”

His mum looks taken aback by the question, which unsettles him because in all of these years he’s never seen her taken aback before. “Me? Oh, no, I don’t suppose I do. I’m usually scheduled to work but this year I think we’re switching about.” She smiles questioningly. “How?”

“Well, we were wondering-”

“-if you wanted to come to ours,” Fitz finishes. “You could come up on Christmas Eve and stay as long as you wanted. If you’re not working or that.”

She blinks at him. “Are you sure? You don’t want to spend Christmas by yourselves or anything like that?”

“Trust me, Mum. We’ve had plenty of time to ourselves.” And he and Jemma share an almost secret smile. “We want to spend it with you.”

“But what about your parents?” His mum turns to Jemma. “Won’t you be going down there?”

“My parents are coming up for the New Year, which you are also more than welcome to join us for.” She smiles encouragingly. “We would love to have you.”

“Then I would love to come,” she says, voice hoarse, and he thinks that, perhaps for the first time in her life, his mother might be lost for words.

And then she smiles at him, and it’s a secret smile again, once that they’ve had ever since he was a little boy, only he’s just realising it now for what it is. A smile that lets him know how very loved he is, there just aren’t enough words for her to say it.

Jemma looks between them and turns around back to Alya. “Oh, sweet girl,” she breathes. “What have you done?”

At this disbelief in her voice, Fitz turns around also to find Alya standing in front of the tree looking so very proud of herself. And he understands why in an instant. All of the piles of baubles and ornaments are gone, and it looks as though every single one has been hung on the tree in what is a very clear and deliberate order. However none of them go above Alya’s head height, so while the bottom of the tree has had a brilliant makeover, the rest of it looks depressingly bare.

“Nice one, monkey,” Fitz laughs. “I probably should’ve told you to keep some of the ornaments to go on the rest of it.”

“That would have probably been a good idea,” Jemma sighs, but it’s her affectionate sigh, as though she still can’t believe her family. “Come on, let’s take some of these off so we can put them on the top.”

“No.” His mum steps forward. “No, leave it.”

“Mum?” Fitz raises his eyebrow. “It’s fine. We can just take some of them off and-”

“That’s the way she’s decorated it,” she says. “The way she’s chosen it. So that’s the way it stays.” She smiles at Alya. “It looks absolutely gorgeous, sweetheart.”

Jemma goes to Alya, who looks torn, caught off guard by something she doesn’t understand and Fitz goes to his mother, puzzled by something that he does.

“Hey,” he says, voice low, as he comes to stand right in front of her so nobody else can overhear. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

His mum looks at him with tears in her eyes that he knows she won’t let spill. “You used to do the same as that, put them all around the bottom and never leave any for the top. And you were never allowed to keep it that way.”

There’s an icy feeling in his heart, it spreads out in fingers from his chest. It’s a familiar feeling, but it’s one that he hasn’t felt in a long time, and had hoped that he would never feel again. “Mum-”

“It was so long until we had a good Christmas here, sweetheart.” She cups his cheek with her hand and looks him straight in the eye. “I want it to be different. This is my house now.”

He nods. This is her house now. “Okay. Alright. The tree stays as is.”

“You’re a good boy, Leo.” She swipes her thumb once before dropping her hand. “Maybe Santa will be good to you this year.”

“I don’t need Santa to be good to me, Mum.” He shakes his head. “I don’t need anything more than I’ve got right here.”

“Och, you’re a right sop you are.” She nudges him on the shoulder, but her smile is wide, and he realises quite suddenly that it looks a lot like Alya’s. The kind of smile you’d die for, no questions asked. “No clue who you get that from.”

“No, I don’t either,” he laughs at it now, because it really is quite absurd. “But stranger things have happened.”

“I quite believe it, though I won’t ask you to tell me the stories. There’s some things you’re just better off not knowing, eh?”

Once upon a time he wanted to unlock the secrets of the whole universe, to take off the cover and peek inside and figure out how everything worked, how it all came together to create the life he was living. Once upon a time he wated answers so badly that his fists were black and blue and his throat was raw with the longing his heart just couldn’t bear anymore. Once upon a time he wondered where the magic was, he wondered if it was real at all.

He doesn’t need to wonder anymore. One look into his daughter’s eyes and there it is, everything he could ever possibly want to know.

“Yeah,” he says, curiosity finally sated. “Some things are just better left unsaid.”

“Well, Alya’s utterly satisfied with the decoration of your tree, I’m afraid, Maggie,” Jemma says with a light laugh, coming back to Fitz’s side and resting her head on her arm.

“Ach, leave her,” his mum laughs, any earlier trace of the past completely gone from her face. “Life’s too short to worry about the Christmas tree being perfect.”

“Um, excuse me, didn’t you just say earlier that it’s good to have a system for decoration?” Fitz ask, faux-outraged, enjoying the opportunity to wind up his mum, who always gets a kick out of winding him up herself. “Something about a dog’s dinner?”

She does nothing except blink at him for a long moment. “You cheeky wee shi-”

“Young ears are listening,” Jemma interrupts. “And she’ll only repeat whatever she hears.”

Fitz is about to say that she wouldn’t, but then he remembers that this is their daughter they’re talking about, and that she completely would.

His mum narrows her eyes at him. “Fine, I’ll hold my tongue.” She goes to walk by him, no doubt to sneak Alya the other shortbread biscuit he just saw poking out of her pocket. She whispers in his ear, “Don’t think you’re getting away with this one. You’ll be sorry for it later.”

He has no doubt that he will be, but it’s just so good to be back home and spending time with her that he really doesn’t mind.

Jemma snuggles closer into his arm and he lifts it up instead, allowing her to tuck herself in at his side. For a moment they just stand there and watch Alya and his mum laugh together in front of the Christmas tree as if they are old friends and have known each other their whole lives.

“They’re quite the pair, aren’t they?” Jemma says against him, a smile in her voice.

“Thick as thieves,” Fitz confirms. “We’re in for all sorts of trouble at Christmas.”

“Oh did you see her face, Fitz? When we invited her? She looked so happy.” She presses herself closer to him. “It was lovely really, to make her that happy. It’s nice to know we can still do that.”

He looks down at her and asks in a low voice, “What do you mean?”

She bites her lip, unsure. “It’s just for so many years it seemed all we did was make other people unhappy. Wherever we went we just seemed to bring trouble.”

“Felt more like trouble found us.”

“Well yes, that too. But first it was SHIELD and then it was just us, Fitz, and I was worried I’d forgotten how to be around other people, how to make them happy I suppose.” She shakes her head, looking down at her shoes for a moment. “I don’t know, it’s silly, I know, but-”

“It’s not silly,” he says softly. “I know what you mean. It’s hard being back. But I don’t think you have to worry, Jemma.”

“No?” She looks up at him with a sparkle in her eye. He’s found the magic after all. “And why’s that?”

“Because you make me happy, happier than I’ve ever been, happier every day I know you. And if you can make other people even a fraction of how happy you make me, then…” he trails off and presses a kiss to her forehead, the next words a whisper. “That’s enough happiness to last a lifetime.”

Jemma blinks up at him, tears in her eyes but there’s a smile in her voice. “Your mum’s right you know, you really are a sop.”

“You heard that?” Jemma nods, the look on her face the same one that Alya has when they’ve found her climbing the kitchen counters but pretending she’s doing otherwise. “Well, maybe she’s got a point. Feeling very sentimental these days.”

“I can tell,” Jemma says, and defies the impossible by pressing herself even further into his side. “Must be the magic of Christmas.”

He looks at his mother and his daughter in front of the tree, giggling conspiratorially. He feels the warmth of Jemma pressed in at his side, not even a space between them, impossible to be parted. Perhaps not so much the magic of Christmas, but simply the magic of _them._

Except no matter how much of a sop he might be, there are still some things that are impossible to be voiced, so he just smiles and says, “Yeah, must be that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please feel free to leave kudos/comments. Please feel free not to. Either way, I hope you have a lovely day and are managing to stay safe and well in this crazy world!
> 
> Also, if I don't see you before then, Merry Christmas to all those who celebrate, and Happy 25th December to all those who don't - I hope it's a good day for you all <3


End file.
